


We Can't Stick to the Status Quo

by Rose711



Series: We Need to Talk [2]
Category: Big Brother RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:17:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5425319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose711/pseuds/Rose711
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Zach tells Frankie that he wants to go to LA for LLVG, he doesn't quite get the reaction he was expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Can't Stick to the Status Quo

“We need to talk,” Zach insisted as he sat down on the edge of the bed with his phone to his ear.

“About what?” Frankie asked, sounding distracted. 

“I want to come to your show.”

Zach was met with nothing but silence. 

“Babe?”

“Yeah? Yeah. You want to come to my show? Livin’ La Vida Grande?” Frankie stammered. Zach laughed quietly. He knew Frankie would be taken aback; Zach wasn’t usually this forward.

“Yes,” Zach answered through a smile.

“Zach…I don’t know. I’m not sure that’s a great idea. There are a lot of people who don’t...love you and there is a good possibility some of them will be at the shows. I don’t want you to get attacked.”

“We’re okay, right?” Zach asked.

“Yeah, but…”

“I miss you. Do you miss me?”

“Yes, Zach, but…”

“Then I’m coming,” Zach said confidently and without hesitation. He smiled at the thought of seeing Frankie again as he heard a sigh on the other end of the phone.

They hadn’t seen each other since October and both men were feeling the effects. For the first six weeks or so they talked every day, but as Frankie’s schedule got busier and the number of time zones between them continually increased, the calls became less frequent and were replaced with shorter and shorter texts. The relationship had stayed status quo but although it was working, Zach was starting to feel antsy and trapped. He wanted more and he needed to see Frankie more than once every three months.

“Zach…I really don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Frankie sounded exasperated and Zach could picture him rubbing his temples with his head bent. Zach loved that even though he didn’t spend a lot of time physically with Frankie, he still knew his mannerisms. 

“What if I only go to one show and stay in the back? And be quiet?” Zach reasoned, knowing that all the attention needed to be on Frankie during the shows. He wouldn’t want it any other way, anyways. 

Frankie sighed loudly. “I’m only going to be in LA for a little while, and most of my time there will be preparing for the show and performing it.”

“That’s fine, as long as I get to see you,” Zach said before he seductively added, “I miss you. I need to see you.”

“I miss you too, I do, but I’m going to try to go to Florida at the end of January. We can get together then and I’ll have you all to myself.” Frankie was trying to make it sounds as if putting off their rendezvous was a positive. Zach grimaced at that thought as he scrunched his face in confusion. 

“Where is this coming from?”

“I just think that we need to think some things through before we see each other again.”

Zach’s heart sank as he leaned back on his bed in utter confusion. Yes, their relationship had been on autopilot for a while, but it was a relationship.

“What are you saying, Frankie?” The silence that met Zach was just the answer he didn’t want to hear. “I love you,” he whispered hoping that he would get a positive response, or really any response. He didn’t and terror started to invade him.

“I have given you everything I have,” Zach whispered, his voice cracking with emotion. He had endured endless ridicule from his fans, his friends and his family. He had survived more emotional breakdowns than he could count. He fell into depression a few times and isolated himself from the world. All because he was in love with Frankie.

“Really? You’ve given me everything you have?” Frankie snorted, sarcasm dripping from each word. “Then why are you still in Florida?”

“I have given you everything that matters, everything I could,” Zach said, some anger creeping in. There was no one else in the world that truly knew Zach the way Frankie did; Zach had given Frankie his heart and his soul. 

But as Zach turned the words over in his head, he realized that he felt as though their relationship was one sided, especially lately.

“But you haven’t given me everything,” Zach continued, now angry. “You aren’t even there when I need you the most.” 

“I have always stood by your side and supported you,” Frankie nearly yelled.

“No, you haven’t. Not in the way I needed you to,” Zach snapped. “When my friends made public homophobic comments, it would have been nice if you had done more than send a two word text. When my parents threatened to kick me out and keep me from my brother, I would have liked an actual conversation rather than exchanged voicemails.”

“I’m busy, I have a lot going on.”

“I know that, Frankie, I do. But you barely even try to fit me into your life. When you come to Florida you come to see family. Or you come for work. Come for me, just me. Once.”

“And what if I did come just for you? Huh? What would you do? Would you sneak out of your parent’s house in the middle of the night only to sneak into mine? Would you be checking over your shoulder every two seconds to make sure a fan isn’t around to see you coming to meet me? Would you look over my shoulder every time I have my phone in my hand to make sure I’m not snapping or tweeting, anything that could possibly reveal that we are together? Is that what you would do?”

Zach felt the words hit him like daggers. He wanted to do nothing more than argue, but what could he say? Everything Frankie said was the truth. But Zach truly didn’t want to live like that anymore.

“That’s what I would have done,” Zach admitted. “But that’s not what I would do this time. We don’t get a lot of time together because of your schedule and we’ve been wasting it. The only time I am really happy is when I am with you.”

Zach felt as though he was a broken record. He has been saying these things to Frankie for the past several months, but nothing changed. Part of it was because of Frankie’s schedule and part of it was because Zach just couldn’t find the courage to follow through and completely change his life.

“I’ll come to LA,” Zach continued, “we can hang out, I can go to one of your shows and sit in the back beaming with pride. And we can talk, face to face, figure some things out, make some plans.”

“Stop, just fucking stop!” Frankie yelled, startling Zach to the point that he had to bring the phone away from his ear. “We’re not doing this again. When we get together we start making promises to each other and that can’t happen again. My heart just ends up getting broken and if it breaks again I don’t know if I can recover. I don’t know if we can recover.”

“I’m sick of this!” Zach exclaimed, the anger returning. “You act as if you are the only one whose heart gets broken every time. Well, guess what? You’re not! I want nothing more than to give you everything you deserve, to give you the world. I want nothing more than to move away with you and fall asleep by your side every night. But I can’t just leave my life when I don’t even know if you’ll be there to accept me into yours.”

Zach sighed dramatically as he waited for Frankie to say something – preferably that he would be settling down, at least a little, and Zach would fit perfectly into his life - as he saw his bedroom door open out of the corner of his eye. Zach wondered when his family had gotten home. When he saw his brother poke his head around the corner, he became furious at his parents. He knew they sent Peyton to check on him because if one them came up they would hear what was being said and then they might feel obligated to talk about it. But if they sent Peyton up they could pretend that everything was fine. As always. 

“Is that Frankie?” Peyton innocently asked.

“Leave.”

Peyton’s eyes grew wide. “Are you okay?”

“Go!”

Peyton slammed the door shut and silence filled the room. Zach could faintly hear Frankie breathing on the other end of the phone.

“I’ll be here for you, Zach,” Frankie said, his voice low and full of compassion. “And I too want to fall asleep next to you every night and wake up by your side every morning. We just can’t keep doing this, saying things will be different and pretending they are before we drift apart and hurt each other. I know we’re not quite ready yet, but… you jump, I jump, Jack.”

Zach smiled for the first time since the conversation began. Frankie put the ball back in his court, which he was used to, but for the first time he felt as though he was prepared for the shot.

“I just really miss you and I need to see you,” Zach remarked before getting back to the reason he made the call in the first place. “This show is a huge deal, and I want to be there for you.”

Zach felt his phone vibrating against his cheek and brought it away from his face to look at it. Frankie had switched the call to FaceTime.

“Then I want you to be there,” Frankie said with a genuine smile as Zach stared into his eyes. 

“I love you, baby. I will see you soon.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know I didn't paint the loveliest picture of Frankie, and I'm contemplating rewriting this from his perspective.


End file.
